Meet the Former Banker Who Is Helping Millennial Men Step Up Their Shoe Game

When Evan Fript finished up his Master’s degree in finance, he made the natural transition into investment banking. But after a few years on Wall Street his priorities began to shift. In spending money refining his wardrobe, he found himself drawn to a totally new field: Fashion.

“I was looking for an escape from investment banking,” Fript said in an interview for Fortune’s new series, Founder Friday. “Working in an office is soul-crushing. I saw the next two decades [and] what would happen if I stayed in an office doing that sort of work. I wanted to find something I was passionate about.”

Sensing a gap in the fashion market, he and fellow Wall Streeter Ben Early decided to start a reasonably priced high-quality footwear brand for millennial men. They called it Paul Evans and launched in 2013.

Given that they had zero retail experience prior to founding the fashion company, Fript says it took them about a year to do market research and find an Italian factory to produce the shoes. Inspired by brands such as Bonobos and Warby Parker, they decided to keep their product out of big-box retailers and go the direct-to-consumer route instead.

“We never wanted to sell a $1,000 pair of shoes,” he said. “I wanted to sell $300 to $400 pairs of shoes. And the only way to do that at this quality level is to go direct to consumers.”

The company brought in roughly $2 million in revenue last year and is reportedly on track to surpass $2.5 million by the end of 2016. To do that, it plans to stay hyperfocused on its target customer: the 26 to 39-year-old urban male who can afford to spend a few hundred dollars on shoes that look and feel well-made.

“Some guys are still wearing these really ugly square-toed shoes [that are] low-quality,” he says. “Shoes are definitely an investment.”

How Adidas Uses Plastics Found in the Ocean for New Gear

German sportswear maker Adidas is finding a home for wasteful ocean plastic: in your running shoes and soccer jerseys.

On Friday, Adidas unveiled the first performance products—soccer jerseys and running shoes—that the company has mass produced with plastic found in our oceans. The materials come from clean-up operations led by Parley for the Oceans, which is an ocean protection organization that seeks corporate partners like Adidas to find a home for plastic pollution found in the world’s oceans.

The plastic that was found off the coastal shores of the Maldives have been repurposed and used in a 7,000 pair run of UltraBOOST running shoes that feature 95% ocean plastic for the knitted upper portion of the shoe. The rest is made with recycled polyester. The design of those shoes is meant to evoke ocean waves.

Meanwhile, soccer jerseys that use the plastic will be worn by the Real Madrid squad when it plays Real Sporting de Gijón later this month. Eric Liedtke, responsible for global brands at Adidas, claims that the jerseys will be the first to be made completely from materials found in oceans.

The move to incorporate more plastic waste into athletic apparel and footwear is part of a broader promise by Adidas to make 1 million pairs of shoes using Parley Ocean plastic next year. With that target in mind, Adidas says it will mean at least 11 million bottles will be retrieved from coastal areas for recycling purposes in the company’s wares.

Soccer jerseys made from ocean plastics will be worn by Real Madrid during a game on November 26.

Adidas and Nikenke are among the shoe manufacturers that have sought to experiment with different manufacturing processes as a way to reuse wasteful materials in newer products that can be sold to consumers. For example, Adidas earlier this year unveiled a series of six sustainability targets it hopes to achieve over the next several years, including promises to reduce water and paper usage and switching to sustainable cotton. It also removed plastic shopping bags from thousands of the company’s global retail stores.

And while Adidas is targeting more aggressive use of recycled polyester and sustainable cotton down the road, for now, most of these eco-friendly production runs are relatively tiny. Consider the goal to create 1 million pairs of UltraBOOST running shoes using ocean plastic next year. That’s a slim piece of the Adidas business considering the corporation’s suppliers produced about 301 million pairs of shoes in 2015.

Still, the news on Friday is significant because it is the first line of performance apparel and footwear to debut since the partnership between Adidas and Parley for the Oceans was first announced in April 2015. That pact led Adidas to rethink some long-established business practices, most notably the move to stop using plastic shopping bags at the company’s stores.

Adidas Is Once Again No. 2 in America

Adidas has hit an important milestone: The German athletic wear maker recaptured the No. 2 sports brand position in the U.S. from rival Under Armour.

Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst with research firm NPD Group, shared in a tweet earlier Tuesday that Adidas was the second-largest seller of sports footwear and apparel in America behind Nikenke. The move up comes two years after its smaller rival Under Armour uagenerated major headlines for pushing it to No. 3.

Losing the No. 2 spot was especially bruising for Adidas, as it generates more than $18 billion in global sales annually vs. just about $4 billion for Under Armour last year. While both have significant distribution in the U.S. market through relationships with key retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goodsdks and their own stores, Adidas is more entrenched in the American sportswear culture from a historical perspective. Under Armour is just 20 years old, while the Adidas brand has been around since 1949.

From NPD Retail Tracking service, Adidas has once again attained #2 spot in US sport footwear & apparel, passing UA. and behind Nike/Jordan

There were already plenty of hints that a reversal of their positions was on the horizon. When Adidas reported quarterly results in August, its North American growth bested the latest results from Under Armour and Nike. Much of the credit can go to Mark King, who became president of the North American business in June 2014 with a mandate to make the brand more on trend after it focused too much on euro-centric design and marketing decisions.

When King first took over, he met with Fortuneto explain his vision for Adidas. His goals were to focus the brand more on running, basketball, and the stylish everyday wear “originals” business. He vowed to report double-digit sales growth in the region, results that Adidas has been delivering of late.

When asked if it was important to get back to the No. 2 spot in the U.S., King downplayed the ranking: “I don’t think we think about it in those terms. We have to be better, and we have to compete more. We have five times the assets that Under Armour does to be able to compete. I think if we do the right things, we certainly will compete at a much higher level.”

A resurgent Adidas has put additional pressure on Under Armour, whose shares slipped more than 13% after executives warned sales growth would slow over the next two years. With Adidas moving back into an offensive position, Under Armour is now playing defense.

Why Shares of Under Armour Are Tanking

Under Armour warned investors that sales growth would slow over the next two years, and the news sent shares down sharply on Tuesday.

The Baltimore-based athletic gear maker said that while it still expects to hit $7.5 billion in revenue by 2018, sales growth over the next two years would be within the range of the “low 20s” on a percentage basis. Over the past three years, Under Armour ua reported annual sales growth of 28% in 2015, 32% in 2014, and 27% in 2013. The projected sales increases for 2017 and 2018 would thus imply a deceleration in growth.

“While we expect to continue to significantly outpace the apparel industry, the growth rate going forward will be less than expected from our investor day in 2015,” said Under Armour Chief Financial Officer Chip Molloy.

Investors signaled their concerns. Under Armour’s shares slipped about 13% on Tuesday. The stock has tumbled 34% from the 52-week high on worries about a slowdown in growth.

Founded just 20 years ago, Under Armour has built itself up to become a significant rival to Nikenke and Adidas in North America, at first by building a sizable men’s apparel business. It then found more success in the footwear space, propelled by a savvy deal with NBA star Stephen Curry, and also by paying more attention to the women’s market. Footwear grew from a $239 million business in 2012 to approaching $1 billion in revenue this year. Impressively, the quarterly sales increase Under Armour reported on Tuesday—a 22% jump in sales to $1.47 billion—was the 26th consecutive quarter of revenue growth above 20%.

But Under Armour, with $3.5 billion in North American sales, is still far tinier than its core rivals. Nike @Nikenkeand Adidas addyy generate $18 billion in revenue in that market, Chief Executive Kevin Plank said. He isn’t discouraged by their behemoth positions. “We have tremendous runway in our home market,” Plank said. “We think we have opportunities to gain market share.”

Plank found himself playing a bit of defense on his conference call with analysts on Tuesday. The recent bankruptcies of some major sportswear retailers, including Sports Authority and City Sports, accounted for a loss of $4 billion in revenue for the industry in North America. That hurt distribution for Under Armour, though Plank contends the brand is still a powerhouse.

“We want to be clear, our demand is still there,” Plank said. “The demand for the Under Armour brand hasn’t disappeared, but it hasn’t reappeared dollar-for-dollar in our distribution.” Going forward, Under Armour plans to respond by focusing more on direct-to-consumer retail—a strategy Nike is also pursuing—and finding other places to sell its apparel and footwear, like Kohl’skss.

Part of why Under Armour is finding itself squeezed in North America is that Adidas is recapturing lost market share. Nike, meanwhile, had a successful summer thanks to the Rio Olympics and continues to perform very well as the industry’s market leader.

While Plank continued to boast of the opportunity to gain market share in the North American apparel market, he touted international expansion and a greater focus on footwear as two arenas that would be most compelling for Under Armour going forward. He says that the footwear business could be as big, if not bigger, than where apparel stands today. Footwear is in fact growing faster: sales increased 54% to $785 million for the first nine months of 2016 from a year ago, while apparel revenue jumped 19% to $2.3 billion over the same period.

As Under Armour gets bigger, it makes it tougher for the company to boost sales at a pace that investors were used to. But there’s one advantage that investors seem to be ignoring. The bigger business means Under Armour can compete for key contracts with sports leagues, individual athletes, and universities. Those deals are important for a brand to become more top of mind with shoppers. A recent example? Reports earlier this month that Under Armour will become the official apparel provider for Major League Baseball.

Adidas Is Suing Skechers Again Over Shoe Designs

Adidas has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Skechers. The German sportswear maker says the smaller rival has been selling shoes that feature technology found in its Springblade line of footwear.

The lawsuit, filed in an Oregon District Court, claims that Skechers skx violated Adidas patents by selling several shoes under the Mega Flex and Mega Blade lines that purportedly “copied Springblade technology.” The Springblade first debuted in 2013 and featured 16 forward angled, highly elastic blades on the bottom of each shoe. Adidas said it invested heavily in the technology, one of two notable innovations it debuted around that time. (The other is its popular Boost line.)

“We will not stand by and allow others to blatantly copy our products and infringe on our valuable intellectual property,” Adidas said in a statement. “These shameless imitations tarnish the reputation of our brand.”

A Skechers representative didn’t respond to a request to comment on the litigation.

It isn’t the first time Adidas and Skechers have found themselves in a legal tussle over shoe design. In the fall of 2015, Adidas sued over a sneaker it claimed was a lookalike version of its Stan Smith shoe. A court earlier this year granted Adidas a preliminary injunction in that case that prevented Skechers from selling two styles that had at that time been discontinued, as well as from using the word “Supernova” in a third style. Skechers at the time downplayed the complaint’s significance, saying the styles weren’t at all important to the brand’s commercial operations. It also indicated it would appeal the ruling.

In the more recent case, Adidas is seeking a preliminary injunction, as well as compensation for the alleged infringement.

Why Adidas is Turning to Robots in Germany and the U.S.

At the end of last year, the German sports-shoe firm Adidas said it would pilot a new automated manufacturing process in a facility called Speedfactory. The test worked: As of next year, the factory in the Bavarian town of Ansbach will begin large-scale production.

What’s more, Adidas will also open a second Speedfactory in the U.S. in 2017, followed by more in Western Europe. According to the company, the German and American plants will in the “mid-term” each scale up to producing half a million pair of shoes per year.

Does this pose a threat to Adidas’s traditional manufacturing base in China, Indonesia and Vietnam? After all, labor in the region is becoming less cheap these days, and manufacturers are increasingly turning to robots— just last week, the South China Morning Post reported that electronics manufacturer Foxconn managed to do away with 60,000 jobs in just one factory, through the introduction of robotic systems.

According to Katja Schreiber, Adidas Group’s senior director of corporate communications, the answer is no—at least, for now.

At the moment, Adidas is producing 301 million pairs of shoes per year and growing its output in the double digits annually. That’s not even counting apparel and accessories. “We are also expanding our traditional sourcing and supply chain,” Schreiber told Fortune.

As the firm tells it, Adidas’s Speedfactory push is not about replacing people so much as it is about, well, speed.

“The current model in our industry is very much based on us sourcing products from countries where our consumers are typically not based,” said Schreiber. “By the time the consumer gets the products, the actual order placed by the retail partner was many months ago.”

“We’re trying to bring our products closer to where our consumer is, cutting out the phase where the product needs to be transported. Ideally retailers will be able to place orders based on current trends, and we won’t need to keep huge warehouses of products just in case.”

For more on robots, watch:

The move will, of course, also provide jobs in the countries where the Speedfactories are located. According to Schreiber, 160 roles are being created at Oechsler Motion, the company that is actually building and will operate the Ansbach Speedfactory.

Other partners are also involved in devising the new manufacturing techniques that the facility will host—for now, German companies are the main beneficiaries, but others will also be involved as Speedfactories appear in other countries.

“Our goal is not full automation,” said Schreiber. “There are highly skilled employees working in these facilities.”

Adidas Is Gaining Ground on Nike as It Stages a Full-Fledged Comeback

Germany’s Adidas gained ground on larger U.S. rival Nike at the start of 2016, reporting a jump in quarterly sales and profits and raising its outlook for the year, sending its shares to an all-time high.

Adidas addyy is benefiting from collaborations with celebrities such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams and has scored major fashion hits with retro Superstar and Stan Smith sneakers.

The company based in southern Germany had already said it had high hopes for 2016 thanks to a busy sporting calendar including the European soccer championship and the Rio Olympics.

“For the group to have performed so strongly, it necessarily means that brand Adidas is back in vogue across the board, not just football in Europe,” said Equinet analyst Mark Josefson, who rates the stock “buy.”

Adidas, which had raised its guidance in February, said it now expected currency-adjusted sales to grow by about 15% in 2016, compared with a previous forecast for a rise of 10 to 12%.

It sees net profit from continuing operations rising by 15 to 18%, up from previous guidance 10 to 12%.

Nike nke, by contrast, last month said it expected revenue to grow in the high single digits for the year ending May 2017, less than analysts were expecting, after a strong dollar hurt sales from some of its overseas markets.

Adidas shares were up 7% at 0915 GMT to a new all-time high, rising by more than a quarter so far this year.

Nike shares are down almost 5% this year to lose a long-held premium to Adidas, which is now trading at 25 times forward earnings versus 24 times for Nike.

CEO Bowing Out

Adidas has hiked marketing spending, particularly in North America, after losing ground to the world’s biggest sportswear maker, sparking a series of profit warnings in 2013 and 2014 and putting pressure on long-serving Chief Executive Herbert Hainer.

Investors expect that Henkel’s Kasper Rorsted will put more of a focus on improving profitability when he takes over from Hainer in October, in the same way he did at the consumer goods company.

Adidas, which reports full quarterly results on May 4, did not give details or reasons for the strong performance, beyond saying it is seeing “strong brand momentum.”

While Nike still dominates its home territory, Adidas is making inroads, with sneaker sales up by more than half in March, market data firm NPD says, driven by casual, classics and running to lift its market share to 7% from 4.8%.

But it is not just a two-horse race. Under Armour last week reported that its quarterly sales jumped 30%, while Germany’s Puma, which reports results on Friday, is also making a comeback.

But today, analysts say the signature basketball shoes tied to NBA star Stephen Curry outsell them all with the exception of Jordan. And Nike nke could have been the benefactor–if it hadn’t famously lost the Curry contract to rival Under Armour ua.

ESPN has a fascinating scoop about what led Curry to leave the world’s largest athletic gear maker for a hot brand that is on the rise, but still far smaller in terms of sales, marketing, and product development.

It all went awry at a pitch meeting where Nike was trying to get Curry to re-sign with the brand. ESPN, quoting Curry’s father Dell, reports that an executive misstated Stephen Curry’s first name. Then, a PowerPoint presentation still featured Durant’s name–likely from older materials that were being reused for the Curry talks.

“I stopped paying attention after that,” Dell told ESPN. It became evident to him that his son would never reach the top tier at Nike.

At Under Armour, Curry is the brand’s marquee name, rather than in the shadows of Nike’s heavy hitters like Michael Jordan and LeBron James. His involvement with Under Armour helped the athletic gear maker report a big jump in footwear sales last year–up 57% to $677.7 million. Curry is so important to Under Armour that he was featured prominently at the company’s investor presentation last fall, when it was also announced that he agreed to a contract extension with Under Armour through 2024.

Analysts say the Curry shoes have been selling very well at retail stores, along with the larger Jordan brand. Meanwhile, Nike’s LeBron and Durant franchises have reportedly seen some softness, according to The NPD Group sports industry analyst Matt Powell.

“We have the right athlete in Stephen Curry,” Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank told analysts during a presentation earlier this year. “He is, without question, the number one basketball player on the planet today.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Jay Sole, who is bearish on Under Armour’s stock, still conceded the strength of sales from Curry’s shoes could help the company offset weakness in the running category and still hit its growth targets. Under Armour basketball footwear sales grew 355% in January and growth even accelerated in February, Morgan Stanley said.

Sole says if Curry were to become the next Jordan, he “puts a halo over the entire brand which benefits its apparel and running footwear businesses.” One risk? He doesn’t believe that Curry has tapped the influential “sneakerhead” market–those that collect rare shoes and are willing to pay very high prices for them.

From a product standpoint, Under Armour is still only just beginning when it comes to building a brand on Curry’s name. The first signature basketball shoe, the $120 Curry One, and apparel debuted in February 2015. The Curry Two went global last October at a $130 price point.

Over that time period, Under Armour said it learned a lot about how it can market and sell signature basketball products–a sliver of the athletic market where it has traditionally had little experience, especially compared to Nike. Under Armour said it feels “incredibly bullish” it can continue to raise prices on those highly coveted shoes over time.

Nike Just Announced a New Shoe That Ties Itself

Nike’s got a plan to make it that much easier to put on shoes before setting out for that run: laces that automatically tighten.

This futuristic feature was one of many product design innovations that the world’s largest athletic-gear maker unveiled at a swanky press event in Manhattan on Wednesday. The shoe, called the HyperAdapt 1.0, is “the first performance vehicle for Nike’s latest platform breakthrough, adaptive lacing,” Nike has boasted.

So how does it work? Fortunately, Fortune got a chance to try it out. I slipped my size 11 feet into the size- 10 prototype shoe that Nike nke had at the event. The laces on the upper portion of the shoe constricted within seconds. It was a snug fit, almost as if I had laced up the shoes themselves (it is notable to add that the laces aren’t long like most shoes – they are built into the top of the shoe).

To make adjustments, I was able to press two buttons on the side of the shoe, a plus to tighten it further or a minus to loosen the shoe. Those changes could also be made within seconds. Would these snug shoes feel great on a run? I can’t say just yet, as I only got to try on the shoe briefly at a massive press event.

In the future, Nike’s designers says the shoe will adjust automatically as an athlete is out on a run. Nike points out that while out for a run, an athlete’s feet naturally swell. This technology could make a run all that more comfortable. And how does the shoe know a foot is in it? Nike says that when your heel slips into the shoe, it will hit a sensor and the system will automatically tighten.

“We are trying to help athletes perform better with a safer and longer career,” said Tinker Hatfield, a legendary shoe designer, at the event.

Hatfield also gave some details about the inspiration for the design of the HyperAdapt 1.0, which took a decade to come to fruition. The midsole – that’s the bottom portion of the shoe – was inspired by a flying robot named EVE that was featured in the 2008 Pixar film “WALL-E.” He said the bottom of the shoe reflected the namesake character of that famous film.

Pricing details weren’t disclosed on Wednesday. The initial run of the shoes will only be sold to members of the company’s digital Nike+ community, kicking off later this year during the holiday season. It will be available in three colors.

For Nike, the world’s largest footwear seller with $18.3 billion in sales, the new innovative shoe is just the latest big surprise the sports company has unveiled in an Olympic year. Steered by CEO Mark Parker, who started out at the company as a footwear designer, Nike likes to share news about its biggest innovations ahead of the Summer Olympics – often previewing franchises that will fuel future design innovations.

Past debuts have included Flyknit in 2012 and Lunar in 2008, both forms of technology that Nike still uses broadly today. The Flyknit innovation, which incorporated new yarn and fabric constructions, is expected to be a $1 billion franchise for Nike in 2016.

Under Armour Debuts First-Ever 3D-Printed Shoes

Under Armour is sneaking into the 3D-printed shoes craze with the launch of a very limited-edition performance training shoe that will go on sale later this month.

The Baltimore-based athletic gear maker is the latest to experiment with the innovative manufacturing process that has already lured rivals including New Balance, Nike nke and Adidas addyy.

This week, Under Armour ua said the UA Architech features a 3D printed midsole and a 3D upper design that helps provide a precision fit. The training shoe was conceptualized during a two-year research and development process that Under Armour says involved the study of geometric shapes and structures to come up with the midsole design. In 3D printing, computerized machines layer material to create three-dimensional objects.

The UA Architech won’t move the sales needle too much for Under Armour, as the initial run of this line of shoes will only be for 96 pairs. The product will retail at $299.99 each and go on sale on March 18.

While 3D printed shoes may not generate high sales volume today, it is important for shoe makers like Under Armour to experiment with how that form of manufacturing can help augment the design and construction process for the company’s shoes.

Still, footwear remains a strong growth channel for Under Armour. Sales for that category soared 57% to $677.7 million in 2015 from the prior year, far outpacing the 22% jump for the larger apparel category. Under Armour, now 20 years old, only entered the footwear market a decade ago but is quickly gobbling up a bigger piece of the pie.

Investments in product innovation within the footwear category have helped Under Armour gain market share recently, analysts have reported, though much of the gains have been attributed to increased sales of basketball shoes. Under Armour’s relationship with NBA all-star Stephen Curry has been particularly lucrative.

Within the running and training categories, Under Armour still commands a slim market share. Larger rival Nike commands sizable market share across all the footwear divisions it competes in, so brands like Under Armour have a lot of room to grow–but also face a strong rival to win market share.